Gratitude
by Croik
Summary: Short, Otacon's POV relfecting after MGS2, drabblelific. Surprisingly not yaoi!


Just a short Metal Gear drabble, Otacon's POV, some time after MGS2.  Metal Gear belongs to Konami and I've stolen it, sorry.  Hope you like it ^^.

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**Gratitude**

In this tiny little apartment on the north side of town, I have made myself a home.

Five months isn't very long time to spend in one place.  It's not even long enough to finish unpacking from a move, and whenever I need something I first look to the boxes stacked in a corner.  My things take up most of the space in the main room, covering every flat surface with papers and screens and a dozen other pieces of electronics.  I like to think of it as cozy.

One half of the main room smells always of sweat—the other is always humming.  There is tension here; we're always on edge and it feels more natural than anything in the world.  The strain of tapping fingertips to keys is nowhere comparable to the burn of training muscles, my cramping wrists nothing like the stick of earned perspiration.  I'll never match him in strength.  But despite the difference of activity when he glances up at me I know he sees me as an equal.  He's the first person to have ever looked at me like that.  It makes me more than I've ever been.

And I love him for that.

He's getting old, and I can see it.  There are a few wrinkles on his brow and around his eyes that I don't remember being there a year ago—a few months ago.  More noticeable is the faint taint of silver at his temples and in his beard.  He's noticed, but he doesn't do anything about it.  Pretty soon I'm sure he'll start looking like an old man.  Now, he's laughing at it, saying he's "too old for this."  I always laugh and agree, and let him know he's got a few more years left.  A few years will be enough, he says.

It never shows when it counts.  Even after this long I can't help but be awed, and a little frightened, when I see him.  I'm still squeamish at the sight of blood.  No amount of trust between us, no amount of respect, will ever allow me to fully understand what he is.  I've held a gun a few times and fired fewer.  I can count the number of people I've killed on one hand.  I used to be proud of that, but I'm starting to think it doesn't matter anymore.  He certainly doesn't care.  He's never bothered to count.  To him there is only the short step over the body that leads to the next report of a gun.

He tells me he's never hesitated, but sometimes he feels the chill, like the brush of departing spirits, even if he doesn't believe in that sort of thing.  There's nothing satisfying in murder and that doesn't change.  But lately, he says, it's a little easier to live with.  Purpose and good intentions make the burden a little less, and second chances outweigh regret every time.  I helped give him that—he did the same for me.

And I love him for that, too.

We never speak about our pasts.  We know a few stories, but they're more like fairy tales for all that we relate them to each other.  I peeked, once.  You can find out almost anything about a person if you know where to look and how deep.  He's no different, legend or not.  I haven't told him about what I learned, but I think he knows. Sometimes, I think he's more glad that I did it than I am.  Because now I know everything I need to, and I'll never have to ask him.  I can even fit some of his scars into place.  It's convenient this way.

My secrets, on the other hand, I have no idea how he found out.  But I'm sure he knows, just because he's never asked or looked as if he'd like to ask.  He knows better than to not be curious, in this line of work.  I don't want to hear how he knows, because it's a little frightening, I'll admit, to think that someone else maybe have discovered as well.  I don't trust others with them—him, I do.  And that's why I'm here.  Why I'm glad he knows and will never ask.

So when I catch him watching his reflection in the mirror, I don't have to say anything at all.  I know what he's afraid of.

And when I receive the letter decorated in half a dozen foreign stamps, he doesn't have to ask why my hands tremble a little.  Why, when I read through the fine cursive, my lips twist into a pained grimace of a smile.  I have no idea how she found me but that's the furthest thing from my mind.  She hasn't heard from me in a long time.  She wonders.  She wants to see me.

"You don't have to reply," he says, without having to know who it is or why my face is pale.  The letter he puts away for me.  Then he gets me drunk, and smokes a cigarette down while ignoring my senseless babble on the subject.  When I fall asleep on the musty couch, he throws a blanket over me before heading to bed.  In the morning the letter will be gone and I won't have to think about it anymore.

And for that, I think, I love him most of all.

But, you know.  Not like _that_.


End file.
